Ian Mecklenburgh, Virgin Media’s director of consumer platforms, was non-committal about the future of Virgin’s TiVO once Liberty is in control. He conceded that Liberty had made big investments in their proprietary Horizon system, but equally “there is an install base of 1.5 million TiVos and that carries a lot of weight.” Mecklenburgh did enthuse on the latest improvements to [...]
Following the admission by John Whittingdale, Chairman of the UK House of Commons Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, that a Communications Bill was unlikely to feature in the government’s legislative programme for 2013-14, Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, has revealed that a Communications Green Paper – a tentative government report and consultation [...]
Despite all the talk of cord-cutting, a report from Digital TV Research states that the number of pay TV subscribers in the US will continue to increase – albeit at a slow rate. However, the Digital TV North America report states that pay TV penetration will remain flat. Simon Murray, report author, said: “Most of the pay TV subscriber losses [...]
Comcast has posted higher quarterly profit driven by strength on the cable side of the business. The leading US cable television provider, which also owns broadcaster NBC Universal, posted first-quarter profit of $1.4 billion, up from $1.22 billion a year ago. While the cable unit lost a worse-than-expected 60,000 customers, it added 433,000 high-speed Internet customers. Revenue at NBC Universal [...]
Cable MSO Liberty Global has increased its stake in Dutch cable operator Ziggo, giving rise to speculation about a possible takeover. Liberty Global already had a 12.65 per cent holding in Ziggo, and raised its stake to 15 per cent, according to a filing with the Dutch stock market regulator AFM. Investment houses Cinven and Warburg Pincus April 26th sold [...]
Teleste has reached agreements with the government cable operator of Gansu Province and Shanghai OTEC Information Technology. As a result, Teleste will have 10 per cent ownership of a joint venture owned by the three parties. The agreements also cover sales development of the Chinese cable market as well as commencing a local manufacturing facility. In step with the digital [...]
Telco and pay-TV giant America Movil is to merge its Brazilian operations. Local director Daniel Hajj says the Mexican-owned company will consolidate its DTH, cable TV and cellular subsidiaries. America Movil owns the Embratel DTH system, Net Servicos (cable) and Claro mobile phone business, and Hajj says the operation will take between 18 and 30 months to switch the various [...]
Belgian cableco Telenet’s increased revenue by 11 per cent in the first quarter as it more than doubled its mobile phone subscribers from a year earlier. The group, which offers cable TV, Internet and telephony to customers in the Dutch-speaking north of Belgium, made 405.6 million in revenues in the first quarter. Telenet said it had 625,000 mobile customers at [...]
Time Warner Cable, the second-largest US cable operator, reported Q1 revenue below analyst estimates as it added fewer-than-expected subscribers for its high-speed data services. Time Warner added only 143,000 high-speed data subscribers in the first quarter, fewer than the 181,000 subscriber additions analysts had forecast. Also it lost 119,000 residential video subscribers in the first quarter, more than the 91,000 [...]
Virgin Media has announced results for the quarter ending March 31st 2013 with revenue up 3.6 per cent to £1.043 billion (€1.23bn) and operating income up 14 per cent to £150 million. Other highlights included cable customer net additions of 8,600, churn fell to 1.1 per cent, the sixth consecutive quarter of year-on-year improvement, triple-play penetration climbed to 65 per [...]
